24 hours in Raleigh

Morning

Head over to Joule Coffee + Table for a bite. Go old school with an egg and cheese sandwich, go Southern with biscuits and gravy, or get crunchy with a breakfast salad; but whatever you do, get a cortado.

After breakfast, wander around downtown a bit. The North Carolina State Capitol is a fine-looking building and blissfully politician-free (they all hang out at the Legislative Complex a few blocks away) and you can finish off your coffee while sitting on the oak-shaded lawn or just stroll.

Make you way to Oak City Cycling and rent a bike. They’re only $25 a day and Ken or one of his folks in the shop will direct you to the Greenway, where you have a 6 mile ride through neighborhoods and along a bike paths to the North Carolina Museum of Art.

At the North Carolina Museum of Art, you don’t have to go inside to get a cultural experience (though you should go inside, the galleries are great and the restaurant, Iris, is fantastic), in the 160-acre Museum Park there are a number of giant sculptures ad whirligigs and interactive art pieces. In the woods, check out Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky, a bunker-like installation that’s actually a camera obscura projecting an image of the sky on the floor.

Afternoon

If you didn’t eat at the Museum, head back downtown. Go classic Raleigh (and super cheap) and eat at The Roast Grill where they’ve served two things since 1940: hot dogs and Cokes in a glass bottle to the customers in their dozen seats. Go for barbecue at Clyde Cooper’s and wolf down a pulled pork sandwich as big as your head. If you’re of the vegetarian-vegan ilk, The Fiction Kitchen has the dish you’re looking for.

Post-lunch, head over to Videri Chocolate Factory for a pick-me-up in the form of a chocolate bar or bonbon, which they make in house from roasting the beans to making the chocolate to packaging it up. It smells so good in there you’ll want to pick up one of their t-shirts and have them seal it in a Ziploc bag so you can smell it later.

With a little chocolate bar giving you a needed caffeine-sugar kick, go two blocks over to the CAM (Contemporary Art Museum), a small, well-curated museum in a former grocery warehouse. It’s a fitting space for a gallery where the exhibits rotate in and out as quickly as summer veggies.

It’s time to get serious, now, so go back over by Videri (and get more chocolate if you need it), but head a couple of doors down to Crank Arm Brewing Company where you will drink at least one flight of beer. Or two. Depending on your thirst level. Do a little self check and ask yourself, “Am I ready to bike over there to go to a bar with the most taps of anyplace in the world?” If the answer is, “No, I feel a little wobbly” or “I don’t know where that is,” see if one of the Rickshaw drivers is hanging around, they often are, and tell them you need to go to Raleigh Beer Garden, STAT.

Raleigh Beer Garden is a wonderland of beer. They hold the Guinness World Record for Most Number of Beers on Draft and that’s 366 beers and growing. This three-story beer bonanza has a bar with 144 taps dedicated to North Carolina brews, another with 220+ national and international beers, and a rooftop bar with a dozen or so taps where the selection is always something different. While you’re here, get a snack, the kitchen really knows what they’re doing and a pizza, an order of wings, or a giant pretzel will help even your keel for the rest of the evening.

Evening

You could go Irish right down the street at Hibernian, track down one of the many food trucks in town, or go for an all out feast of epic proportions at Babylon. Babylon serves up Moroccan dishes and everything on the menu is rave-worthy. Get a bottle of wine (if you’re the type to go from beer to wine to booze, because booze is next) and get dinner outside by the fountain where if it wasn’t for the Southern accents on every server, you could be in Casablanca.

Before evening turns into actual night, return your bike and get a driver to take you down to Boxcar Bar + Arcade. You’re going to need quarters, and lots of them, if you expect to make your way through the 70 video games—some vintage, others classic others newish—here. A full liquor bar means you can make the switch now, or go back to beer courtesy their two dozen taps, your call.

Night

Get to The Haymaker over on Fayetteville Street, one of the growing number of craft cocktail bars in Raleigh.

It’s late and you’re hungry, so go to Beasley’s Chicken + Honey around 11:30 and get some chicken and Waffles. The waffle’s crispy, the chicken crispier, and the whole thing is drizzled in honey and damn if it isn’t late-night perfection.

If you catch a second wind or decide you never lost the first one, head downstairs for a post-chicken-and-waffle cocktail at Fox Liquor Bar where the drinks are strong and Willy Wonka-level creative.

10 tips for 24 Hours in Raleigh

Get on the Greenway; walk if you want, but bikes are better

Check out live music at Red Hat Amphitheatre, Lincoln Theatre, on Fayetteville Street or at The Pour House

If Raleigh Beer Garden gets too crowded, head down the street to Hibernian Pub

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